I know you’re out there! I’d love to hear some thoughts on how best to handle a situation. I work in a small team with four other teachers. Three of us (myself included) teach regular, on-level kids with a few SPED/504 kids mixed throughout. The fourth person (I’ll call him Bob) teaches coteach and English Language Learners(ELL). These groups have a higher percentage (like 30-50%) of SPED/504 kids, and the ELLs obviously speak very limited English. Our district requires that we give a campus common assessment (CCA) every marking period. This test is written by us, and is identical from class to class. The data (demographics, test scores per kid, question breakdowns, etc) are then compiled so we can compare across campus, and by question to see how closely our kids are doing compared from teacher to teacher and within the district.

Here’s my problem. We gave our CCA on Friday last week. I compared data with Bob that afternoon casually and my test scores were noticeably lower than his. Like defies logic lower. I assumed this was because I missed Thursday due to illness and didn’t get a chance to review my kids. Monday, I was talking with the other two team members about their numbers, and one revealed that she had seen Bob basically teaching to the test the day before when I wasn’t there. We got the big data compile summary today and the data backs this up.

The three of us had an average of 65% across all students. His was 74%. 43% of our kids scored a 70 or higher, and 6% got a 90 or higher. His scores were 70% got a 70 or higher and 15% got 90 or higher. Keep in mind, these are lower level kids out performing regular on-level kids. Something is obviously wrong.

So, has anyone dealt with this? What did you do about it? We will be talking abour our data in our next meeting because I want to see if he can justify why his numbers are higher. And we three have also asked another coworker to write our next CCA so it is a blind test. I feel like going to the principal right now would be hearsay even though the data looks really weird. Think we should do it anyway or would this be professional suicide? I’m still in my first year of teaching. The others are not.

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I’m really frustrated for my kids. I make my kids work hard. Three quizzes a week, lots of labs, and homework every night. The other teachers do the same thing. He does not do this. I don’t even know if he has quizzed them once this grading period. We three feel like our kids are being punished for working harder while his kids get a handout. Thoughts and commiserations would be appreciated. Feel free to rant about your own teacher woes in the comments.